D&R Headline News (March 2012)

Headlines for Friday Mar. 30, 2012

Top Story

Gartner Says Semiconductor Foundry Market Grew 5.1 Percent in 2011 to Reach $29.8 Billion

The worldwide semiconductor foundry market totaled $29.8 billion in 2011, a 5.1 percent increase from 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Analysts said the semiconductor supply chain experienced some impact from the Japanese disasters and Thailand flooding. However, without the steep depreciation of U.S. currency, analysts said that foundry growth in 2011 would have been just 0.7 percent.

• Open-Silicon Integrates 25 Analog Bits IP Cores Into Complex ASIC and SoC Designs

Headlines for Thursday Mar. 29, 2012

• Elliptic Technologies Welcomes Representative ETesiAN To Broaden Support And Distribution Of Embedded Security Solutions For The European Market
• Dialog Semiconductor and TSMC create a Process Platform to advance BCD power management leadership
• TowerJazz and UCSD Demonstrate First Silicon Wafer-Scale 110 GHz Phased Array Transmitter with Record Performance
• Indian design firms eye chip IP model
• Panel ponders many-core ICs tripping 'the singularity'

Headlines for Wednesday Mar. 28, 2012

• Synopsys, Altera and TSMC Collaborate to Deliver Silicon-Accurate Parasitic Modeling and Extraction for 28-nm Processes
• NXP Introduces Longevity Program for ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers
• Xilinx Making Ground Breaking Network Communication Systems Possible With First Shipments of Transceiver-Packed Virtex-7 X690T FPGAs
• Market for Mobile Processors Is Projected to Reach 1.9 Billion Units Annually by 2016
• SpringSoft Announces That STMicroelectronics Uses VIA Platform to Build Custom Verification Applications for Chip Development Flow
• RDA Microelectronics Acquires Baseband IP from Coolsand

Headlines for Tuesday Mar. 27, 2012

Top Story

Cosmic Circuits aims to be major player in Semiconductor IP, announces roadmap for PCI Express, USB3.0, USB2.0, HDMI & MIPI in 28nm and 20nm

Cosmic Circuits today announced the development of MIPI D-PHY, MIPI M-PHY, USB2.0, USB3.0, PCI Express and HDMI IPs in 28 and 20nm. Cosmic Circuits is also developing the controller solutions for these standards in order to provide customers with a complete solution.

• Altera Ships Cyclone V Family - the Lowest Power, Lowest Cost 28-nm FPGAs Available on the Market Today
• Lattice and IntelliVision Announce Intelligent HD Video Analytics for the HDR-60 Camera Development Kit at ISC West
• Xilinx Offers Defense-Grade Virtex-6Q FPGA Family with Anti-Tamper and Anti-Counterfeit Features
• Analog Bits SERDES Achieves 10Gbps on Consumer Electronic Cables
• Altera Accelerates Customer Design Productivity and Innovation With Launch of Design Services Network Program
• Imagination announces highest performance 4K capable multicore video decoder
• videantis licenses multi-standard video IP to BOSCH
• GSA Announces 2012 Board of Director Election Results

Headlines for Monday Mar. 26, 2012

Top Story

Synopsys Unveils Industry's First Complete Audio IP Subsystem

Synopsys today announced the availability of the DesignWare® SoundWave Audio Subsystem, a complete, integrated hardware and software audio IP subsystem for system-on-chip (SoC) designs. Synopsys' SoundWave Audio Subsystem is fully configurable and supports 2.0 to 7.1 audio streams with 24-bit precision to meet the requirements of a broad range of audio applications such as digital TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray Discs, portable audio devices and tablets.

• Wind River Announces Software Support for Xilinx Zynq-7000 EPP
• Imagination announces availability of HelloSoft V.VoIP MediaEngine SDK
• Triad Semiconductor and Mentor Graphics Announce Low Cost Mixed-Signal Design with ViaDesigner
• Cadence Announces Support for New Interface Verification IP for Development of Cloud Infrastructure
• Intel's Semiconductor Market Share Surges to More Than 10-Year High in 2011
• Open Virtual Platforms Selected by NEPHRONplus EU Research Project for Software Development Environment
• Synopsys Unveils 3D-IC Initiative
• Lattice Semiconductor Announces Innovative Bridge Design for Sony IMX136 Image Sensor

Headlines for Friday Mar. 23, 2012

Top Story

Avery Design Systems Unveils DDR4 and DFI-PHY Verification IP Solution

Avery Design Systems Inc., an innovator in functional verification productivity solutions, today announced availability of its DDR-Xactor verification IP providing DDR and LPDDR memory models and a complete DFI-PHY verification solution

• Embedded Graphics: Imagination Technologies Supplies More GPU IP than all Others Combined According to Latest Report from Jon Peddie Research
• Avery Design Systems Unveils SimXACT for Elimination of X Pessimism Issues in Gate-Level Simulation and Upgrades XVER X Verification

Headlines for Thursday Mar. 22, 2012

Top Story

Synopsys Extends Leadership in Storage Standards Verification IP with NVM Express

Synopsys today announced availability of verification IP (VIP) for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), an emerging storage protocol for connecting solid state drives (SSDs) directly to the PCI Express® interface.

• TI introduces industry's first family of ICs designed to support Thunderbolt Technology
• Faraday Technology Allied with Arasan Chip Systems in MIPI DSI Receiver and MIPI D-PHY
• Altera and TSMC Jointly Develop World's First Heterogeneous 3D IC Test Vehicle Using CoWoS Process
• Broadcom Extends Fiber Access Portfolio with Acquisition of BroadLight
• Test and Verification Solutions opens its branch office at Bengaluru, India
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES Dresden Fab Ships 250,000th 32nm HKMG Wafer

Headlines for Wednesday Mar. 21, 2012

Top Story

Cadence Delivers High-Performance, Low-Power Design IP Supporting LPDDR3 Memory Standard

Designed to provide the high bandwidth and low power consumption required by smartphones and tablets, the Cadence LPDDR3 memory IP solution includes integrated controller and PHY support, virtual prototyping, verification IP and Allegro(R) design-in kits to accelerate implementation and reduce design risk.

• Tilera and AuthenTec Team to Deliver Highest Performance, Most Efficient IPsec Solution
• Synopsys Unveils Virtualizer Development Kits to Accelerate Software Development for ARM big.LITTLE Processing
• After Hitting 11-Year High in Q4, Semiconductor Inventories Set to Decline Slightly in Q1
• ISSI Signs SRAM Technology Licensing Agreement with IBM
• Polaris Design Acquires ASIC/SoC Prototyping Business of IRIS Technologies and Appoints PROTOtyping Japan as Its Exclusive Japan Distributor
• Semtech Completes Acquisition of Gennum Corporation
• Cadence Opens Expanded Shanghai Sales Office and R&D Center

Headlines for Tuesday Mar. 20, 2012

Top Story

ASIC Design Starts: New Growth Ahead

The ASIC Design Start landscape has changed since 2006 to accommodate increasing design costs, rising design complexity and lengthening design cycle times, especially in the System-on-a-Chip (SoC) market. These changes are having an impact on the ASIC Design Start market as the broader semiconductor market has mostly recovered from the financial meltdown that occurred in the 3rd quarter of 2008 and into the first part of 2009.

• S3 Group Selected to Power New Generation of Iridium Communications Devices
• Ittiam Revenue Crosses US$20 Million with Royalties Contributing Over 35%
• Xilinx Inaugurates Expanded Site in Hyderabad for R&D, Technical Support
• X-FAB Extends High-Temperature Capability to 0.18 Micrometer Platform for Unique Combination of High Voltage, High Temperature and NVM Features
• eMemory and HLMC Cooperate on High-Voltage Advanced Fabrication Platform

Headlines for Monday Mar. 19, 2012

Top Story

Adapteva close to sampling 28-nm, 64-core coprocessor

Adapteva, a small and lean fabless startup that has developed a series of multicore floating-point processors, claims its latest device, a 28-nm 64-core processor is close to sampling.

• Opera TV Solutions Now Available for MIPS Architecture
• GSA Provides Financial Overview of the Largest Semiconductor Companies
• Renesas Electronics Introduces High-Performance and Compact SoC for High-End Hybrid Set-Top Box

Headlines for Friday Mar. 16, 2012

Top Story

First Sidense Customer Takes Kilopass 1T Patent Coverage License

Kilopass today announced it has licensed its 1T patent coverage license (PCL) to a Sidense customer. This is the first in an expected series of customers to license the 1T PCL. With the 1T PCL, Kilopass is enabling direct resolution with Sidense customers on their existing products using 1T technology before the U.S. District Court trial begins on September 30, 2012.

• SMIC Secures USD 600 Million Syndicated Loan
• Apical licenses iridix image processing cores to Texas Instruments

Headlines for Thursday Mar. 15, 2012

Top Story

Why ST will likely sell ST-Ericsson to China

Europe's largest chip company STMicroelectronics NV should persuade Ericsson AB that they sell off their mobile chip joint venture ST-Ericsson, but probably to some aspiring Chinese company.

• Globalfoundries expects sales to AMD to increase
• Liquid Design Systems Inc. launches sales of leading edge TV and its related IPs developed by JVC
• Report: ST-Ericsson re-org is prep for sale
• SilTerra launches 130nm CMOS Logic Aluminum Backend Technology
• EEMBC Brings Order to the Chaos of Android Benchmarking
• Gartner Says Worldwide Semiconductor Spending to Reach $316 Billion in 2012, a 4 Percent Increase from 2011
• GSA Reports A 237.1% Increase in February Semiconductor Funding Activity
• Synopsys and Applied Materials Collaborate on TCAD Models for Next-Generation Logic and Memory Technologies

Headlines for Wednesday Mar. 14, 2012

Top Story

Vivante and Cadence Unveil Mass Market GPU-Optimized DDR Memory Solution

Vivante today announced that it has worked with Cadence to qualify the Cadence double data rate (DDR) Memory controller on-chip intellectual property (IP) solution for use with Vivante's graphics processing unit (GPU) IP solution

• Gennum Shareholder Approval Obtained for Acquisition by Semtech
• SMIC, Brite, and Zhejiang University Found Joint IC Research Program
• Nuvation Engineering Delivers Advanced 3rd Generation Battery Management System
• Polish Prime Minister amazed by DCD's IP Core
• Cadence TSMC, ARM call for more collaboration
• RFEL creates flexible design emulation of Graychip GC1012B Wideband DDC

Headlines for Tuesday Mar. 13, 2012

Top Story

World's Most Energy-efficient Processor From ARM Targets Low-Cost MCU, Sensor and Control Markets

ARM today announced the ARM® Cortex™-M0+ processor, the world's most energy-efficient microprocessor. The Cortex-M0+ processor has been optimized to deliver ultra low-power, low-cost MCUs for intelligent sensors and smart control systems in a broad range of applications including home appliances, white goods, medical monitoring, metering, lighting and power and motor control devices.

• Novocell Semiconductor Introduces SWIFT2Chip -- the Integrated Circuit Industry's First Full Service, Hassle-Free, Drop-In Non-Volatile Memory Delivery Process
• Sidense Licenses 1T-OTP to Toumaz Microsystems for GLOBALFOUNDRIES 65nm Low-Power Process
• Freescale Introduces Kinetis L Series, Industry's First Microcontrollers Built on the ARM Cortex-M0+ Processor
• NXP Licenses ARM Cortex-M0+ Processor
• Xilinx Raises Quarterly Dividend $0.03 per Diluted Share
• Xilinx and Micron Demonstrate Industry's First Hardware Interoperability of FPGA and RLDRAM 3 Memory Interface Standard
• Xylon Releases the logiMLB IP Core Based on Licensed SMSC's MediaLB Technology
• New design techniques enable extremely reliable medical devices
• Soitec announces adoption of fully depleted technology for advanced mobile platforms
• GUC and Synopsys Achieve Design Milestone
• Cortus Announces Bridges for AHB-Lite and APB to Enable Migration to the APS and FPS Processor Product Range

Headlines for Monday Mar. 12, 2012

Top Story

Posedge Inc announces the availability of "Wireless Packet Processor"

Posedge has expanded its portfolio by announcing the availability of Posedge Wireless Packet Processor (PE WPP). The highly integrated PE WPP enables high throughput and flexible packet processing including layer 2-4 header modifications, switching, IPv4/IPv6 routing and inline flow classification. The PE WPP’s integrated traffic management provides Quality of Service (QoS), with hierarchical per-flow/per-class rate control, traffic shaping, and congestion management at 1.4 Gbps data rates.

• Cosmic Circuits' is demonstrating its MIPI M-PHY solution at the MIPI Alliance Demo Day in Seoul
• Broadcom Announces 40nm EZ-HD Digital Transport Adapter Solution
• Texas Instruments and iRobot team up to shape future robotic innovation
• GLOBALFOUNDRIES CEO Appointed to GSA Board of Directors
• FAA Reaffirms Approval of LynuxWorks LynxOS-178 Reusable Software Components RTOS for Safety-Critical Applications

Headlines for Friday Mar. 09, 2012

Top Story

Mixel and Graphin Demonstrate World's First End-to-end Video Transmission Using M-PHY Link

Mixel and Graphin announced today that they have achieved the world’s first end-to-end video transmission over a MIPI® M-PHY link

• Entropic Receives U.S. Court Approval to Acquire Trident Microsystems' Set-Top-Box SoC Assets
• TSMC February 2012 Sales Report
• Altera Updates First Quarter Revenue Guidance

Headlines for Thursday Mar. 08, 2012

Top Story

Arasan Chip Systems first to market with MIPI D-PHY Rev 1.1 compliant PHY IP

Arasan's MIPI D-PHY 1.1 implementation, with full 1.5Gbps data rates on each lane, allows tablet designers to go to 2560x2048 resolution at 30 fps and 2048x1536 resolution at 60fps

• Semtech Acquires Wireless Long Range IP Provider Cycleo
• Systemcom Ltd launches new silicon validated Current-Input Analogue Front End with Digital Control and SPI Interface at TSMC 180nm
• SMIC Announces Ultra High Density IP Library for 0.11um Cu-BEoL Process
• UMC Reports Sales for February 2012
• Imagination Technologies Group plc: Interim Management Statement

Headlines for Wednesday Mar. 07, 2012

Top Story

CEVA Extends Bluetooth Portfolio With Bluetooth 4.0 IP

CEVA today announced the availability of its low energy CEVA-Bluetooth 4.0 IP, for both single mode and dual mode applications. CEVA-Bluetooth 4.0 incorporates Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) functionality, significantly expanding the addressable market for Bluetooth connectivity to include a wide range of smaller, cost-efficient applications previously limited by the power consumption of older Bluetooth standards.

• AppliedMicro Tapes-out PACKETpro Embedded Processor with SLIMpro Accelerator using Arasan Chip Systems' SD3.0/eMMC4.5 Host Controller
• ECT's World's first 3D chip supporting MIPI employs five Mixel MIPI products
• Who wins when Cortex-M adds RTOS?
• Cut Down Silicon Cost with SWORD - the Single Wire Debugging Solution from Evatronix
• Dialog Semiconductor Pioneers Integration of ARM Processor in Power Management ICs for Next Generation Smartphones
• ASIC Design Starts: Communications Dominate but Smart Grid and Transportation Growing Faster
• U.S. Presidential Election Years Influence Semiconductor Market
• Report: Fewer design starts are yielding higher value
• Intel unimpressed with AMD's SeaMicro buy
• Intel rolls first processor optimized for datacenters
• Fujitsu Laboratories of America Adopts Berkeley Design Automation Analog FastSPICE Platform for High-Speed CMOS Transceivers
• Sidense Exhibiting at Common Platform Technology Forum

Headlines for Tuesday Mar. 06, 2012

Top Story

Fast JPEG Encoder Core from CAST Used in Fastec TS3 High-Speed Camera

Fastec Imaging Corporation has incorporated a JPEG Encoder IP Core from CAST, Inc. in its groundbreaking TS3™ line of handheld, high-speed digital cameras.

• Uniquify Extends Patented Timing Calibration Innovation to Solve Dynamic Variation in DDR Memory Subsystems
• How do you count cores? Or should you?
• Imagination announces major upgrade to its PVRTC technology
• Imagination announces PowerVR Insider SDK 2.10
• GUC Monthly Sales Report - February 2012
• Altera Shows World's First Optical FPGA Technology Demonstration
• Global Semiconductor Sales Decline 2.7 Percent in January with Sales Poised for Future Growth
• Imec releases industry's first 14nm process development kit
• Accent Slashes Smart Meter Development Time With Its ASMgrid2 Kits And Standard Product Offering

Headlines for Monday Mar. 05, 2012

Top Story

ADTechnology Selects S3 Group to Customize a Baseband ADC and Power Management Solution for its Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB) System on Chip (SoC)

S3 Group, a global provider of Mixed Signal, Analog, RF and Power Management semiconductor IP solutions, today confirmed that fabless semiconductor vendor ADTechnology Co. Ltd. has licensed its Baseband ADC and Power Management IP. S3 Group customized IP from its portfolio, using its skilled engineers, to deliver the solution.

• Xilinx Announces Industry's First Dual 100 Gbps Gearbox Solution for Interfacing CFP2 Optical Modules to Virtex-7 HT FPGAs
• New ARM DS-5 v5.9 Toolchain Provides Developers With an Integrated Processor and GPU Software Optimization Platform For Mobile Gaming
• ARM announces support for STMicroelectronics STM32 F0 series in the MDK-ARM Development Kit
• Aizyc Technology introduces USB 3.0 Device IP with a production worthy USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet application
• Cadence Appoints Martin Lund to Lead SoC Realization Group
• Atrenta and TSMC IP Quality Initiative Gains Broad Industry Acceptance
• AMD Amends Wafer Supply Agreement With GLOBALFOUNDRIES
• Cadence Accelerates High-Performance, Giga-Scale, 20nm Design With Next-Generation Encounter RTL-to-GDSII Flow
• Springsoft Delivers Breakthrough Productivity with Third Generation Chip Debug Platform
• Rambus and MediaTek Sign Patent License Agreement

Headlines for Friday Mar. 02, 2012

• TSMC Board of Directors Resolution
• MIPI Alliance Low Latency Interface Extends Design Options While Saving Cost and Board Space
• ARM announces support for Silicon Labs ARM Cortex-M3 devices in the MDK-ARM Development Kit
• Altera's Stratix V FPGAs Break Through Performance Barriers with Industry's First Single-Chip, Dual 100G Transponder

Headlines for Thursday Mar. 01, 2012

Top Story

MTI Releases the next generation in OBSAI, CPRI, & JESD technology

MTI Mobile – a world-leading developer of radio network technology for 3G and LTE - is launching a range of next generation of high-speed Intellectual Property Core (IPC) solutions allowing mobile & wireless equipment providers to develop faster and more powerful radio network solutions.

• Xilinx Releases First 28nm FPGAs to Production
• Kilopass First to Demonstrate Antifuse Reliability Data in 28nm HKMG
• Fixnetix Selects Intilop's TCP Offload Technology to incorporate in their Low Latency solutions
• Lattice Announces Upgraded HDR-60 Video Camera Development Kit Featuring New GUI from Helion
• eMemory Announces Ultra Low Power OTP Solution in Low Cost Process Platform
• ClariPhy Licenses Tensilica's Xtensa Dataplane Processor (DPU) for Optical Networking Mixed Signal, Digital Signal Processing (MXSP) SOCs
• Core Wireless Launches Patent Litigation Against Apple
• HiSilicon and imec collaborate on reconfigurable RF transceivers
• Lattice Announces Support for Panasonic 1080p Image Sensor